Fox now has face mask mandates, too. But Tucker Carlson (almost definitely vaccinated) kept up his pro-death, anti-American assault on public health measures tonight by comparing criticism of the unvaccinated to lynchings.
In a Tuesday memo updating staff on Covid-19 procedures, Fox News Media chief executive Suzanne Scott said that the company has "asked all employees — whether on site as part of our essential workforce or working remotely — to upload their vaccination status" into an internal database.
"All employees must enter their status no later than today, August 17th, by close of business," Scott wrote, bolding that particular sentence in her email, which was obtained by CNN Business, but first reported on by AdWeek.
Scott added that while masks remain optional for vaccinated employees, the company is "requiring employees to wear a mask in small, confined spaces with limited opportunities for social distancing and where there are multiple employees, including control rooms."
You probably recall that just last week, Carlson celebrated Fox News contributor Clay Travis’ anti-mask tirade at a Tennessee school board meeting after which medical professionals who spoke in favor of masks were threatened. Travis (a guy without a single medical or public health credential) told an approving Carlson, “I feel bad for all these people walking around in masks engaging in cosmetic theater thinking that they are making a difference against COVID, they aren't.”
Carlson, another guy without a single public health credential, declared that the mask mandate indicates the schools are “committed to hurting those children.”
Think Travis will be complaining to Fox about being forced to engage in “cosmetic theater?” Nah, me neither. As CNN pointed out, Carlson compared questions about his vaccine status to being asked about his sex life (though his deflections and dodges almost surely indicate he’s been vaccinated). Sean Hannity has claimed the question violates “medical privacy.” I doubt he’ll be biting the hand that feeds him, either.
So how is Fox justifying this hypocrisy? By clamming up. CNN reported:
Fox News spokespeople did not respond when asked about the discrepancy between the rhetoric from the channel’s top stars and its own internal policies.
Tonight, Carlson visited Will Cain during his audition for permanent guest host of Fox News Primetime. There, F***y Tucky championed the unvaccinated by portraying them as oppressed and likening criticisms of them to lynchings:
CARLSON: You know, lynchings have happened throughout history, not just simply in this country, but in all countries because there's something in people that wants to turn on the unpopular kid and beat him to death. That's like who we are. That's the ugliest part of who we are.
And if you have ruthless leaders who are willing to exploit that for their own gain -- and we do -- then they wind up turning the population against itself -- and vaccinated, unvaccinated, white, Black, these divisions which we didn't recognize a year ago are now defining our lives and we're being used. I mean, that's the truth. If you want to subdue people, divide them. And that's exactly what they're doing.
Maybe he thinks that makes him look like less of a racist.
You can watch the Murdoch-funded Carlson continue to push disease and death for others, while cowardly hiding his own vaccination status below, from the August 19, 2021 Fox News Primetime, via Media Matters.
